A Japanese bank is putting the financial safety and security of its customers in the palms of their hands.
Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank announced today that starting in September, it will equip 10 ATMs with biometric authentication sensors that read its customers' palms for identity verification, Tokyo's Nikkei reported.
Unlike other ATMs that use biometric sensor technology, Ogaki Kyoritsu's ATMs do away with the cash card entirely, and use a scan of the person's palm, along with a four-digit PIN and the customer's birth date, as the means of verifying identity and withdrawing money.
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Along with the machines at 10 banks, there will be two mobile ATMs and a drive-thru machine. Customers wishing to take advantage of the new security system must first register their biological information at a bank branch. The banks are located in Gifu Prefecture in central Japan, west of Tokyo.
Ogaki Kyoritsu announced the new ATMs with the slogan "You are the cash card," Network World reported. The bank said one factor behind its decision to build the palm-reading ATMs was last year's earthquake and tsunami, which forced people to flee their homes without any possessions or forms of identification, and left them unable to access their bank accounts from ATMs.
The bank's forward-thinking ATMs are being developed by Fujitsu, the same communications company behind a new voice software technology that analyzes the pitch of a person's voice while on the phone to determine if he or she is being scammed.